Extraordinary … The intensely personal stories she tells are a welcome corrective to the often dehumanising discourse that surrounds migration in rich countries. This unforgettable book should be required reading for politicians on all sides.” — the Guardian I read The Pianist while I was also reading The Fourth Time I Drowned. While both were heavy books, I found these were important to read to honor and understand more of each story and setting: one about the Warsaw ghettos in the 1940s and the other about the Mediterranean refugee migration crisis happening today. Both books provided harrowing accounts of hopelessness, desperation, and survival. The horrors described in Warsaw and Libya show truly the worst in humanity, how people can hold such little regard for human life. I read and processed both books together, drawing parallels and noting differences, so I figured I'd write a joint review on these.

Sally Hayden (28 September 2017). From Our Own Correspondent (radio). BBC Radio 4 . Retrieved 22 April 2022. The judges for The Orwell Prize for Journalism 2022 were Isabel Hilton (chair), journalist and founder of China Dialogue, Helen Hawkins, ex-culture editor at The Times, Marcus Ryder, Head of External Consultancies at the Sir Lenny Henry Centre for Media Diversity and chair of RADA, and Sameer Padania, author and independent journalism consultant. Isabel Hilton said:A book to make me laugh?: They aren’t exactly comedy, but when I’ve travelled to various cities lately, like Accra, Lagos and Nairobi, I’ve read the associated book from the Akashic Noir series. They are collections of crime stories by writers set in their own country and some do contain wry humour. En toch, nu het hier allemaal zo heel expliciet en goed uitgelegd staat, komt het toch weer binnen. Which public event affected you most?: When the Iraq War began I remember being glued to 24-hour TV news.

She then starts her story properly with Essey in Eritrea (a country about which I knew nothing apart from its location). He makes his way across Ethiopia and Sudan, to Libya, where he unsuccessfully tries to travel by people smugglers’ dinghy to Europe. Having been stopped by Libyan coastal patrols twice and getting his extended family to pay bribes to get him freed, his family runs out of money and he is imprisoned in Libya. My Fourth Time, We Drowned casts light on a dark world that would be only too visible if we cared to look. These are stories that should be heard by everyone. A]stonishingly detailed… My Fourth Time, We Drowned is not simply a catalogue of misery: it is a meticulously documented record of the complicity of the very organizations that are meant to be forces of good.”— The Times Literary Supplement My Fourth Time, We Drowned is compassionate, brave, enraging, beautifully written and incredibly well researched. Hayden exposes the truth about years of grotesque abuse committed against some of the world’s most vulnerable people in all of our names. After this, none of us can say we didn’t know.” — Oliver Bullough, author of ‘Moneyland’Probably the most important and touching book I’ve read this year… It’s horrific and nobody comes out looking good, least of all us citizens of Europe, who have allowed terrible things to go on in our name.” — Five Books

The painful themes from this formidable book are skillfully written about by Sally Hayden…” — New Lines Magazine

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Readers should not flinch from [anger and embarrassment] but look it directly in the face, and let Hayden’s vital reporting make them reconsider their view of what makes a moral world.” — The Baffler a b Doyle, Martin (7 December 2022). "Sally Hayden wins An Post Irish Book of the Year award for My Fourth Time, We Drowned". The Irish Times. Hayden’s powerful book relays the harrowing stories migrants have shared with her from their experiences in various Libyan migrant detention centers, from enduring near-starvation conditions to torture and even death…an accessible, critically reported account…” – – The Washington Post

Hayden has written for The BBC, [6] TIME, [7] The Guardian, [8] Newsweek, The Washington Post, [9] Al Jazeera, CNN International, NBC News, Channel 4 News, The New York Times, [10] Thomson Reuters Foundation News, Magnum Photos, The Irish Times, [11] The Financial Times, The Daily Telegraph, [12] RTÉ. [5] In 2014, she was staff writer with VICE News. [5] A book that might move me to tears?: Bushra al-Maqtari’s What Have You Left Behind, about the devastation of the war in Yemen, which I recently reviewed for The Irish Times; and Alexa Hagerty’s Still Life With Bones, on the exhumation of mass graves in Latin America. It comes out next year but I was sent an early copy. Your book, My Fourth Time, We Drowned, has now won Irish Book of the Year , the Orwell Prize for Political Writing and the Michel Déon Prize . For those who haven’t read it, can you describe its subject, explain how it came about and where the title comes from?David Collins and Hannah Al-Othman were also awarded a Special Prize for their entry, The Murder of Agnes Wanjiru. Sophia Parker said: Who is your favourite fictional character?: I used to always love detectives, like Hercule Poirot and Lord Peter Wimsey. For International Migrants Day 2022, Kim Yi-Dionne and Laura Seay of The Washington Post named the book among the top three new books to read on the topic. [21]